Sour Grapes Post Election 2012

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Post Election Learning.... SUPER PACs

..........high-profile companies haven’t been afraid to jump into the partisan fray.
In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevrondonated $2.5 million to a super PAC close
to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has
aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.

Oxbow Carbon, the energy company owned by billionaire William Kock, the
lesser-known brother of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, and
Contran Corp., the business of Republican super donor Harold Simmons of Texas,
have both steered significant sums to the coffers of super PACs.

Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP super PACs, making it the No. 2
corporate donor to super PACs, while Contran, No. 3, has donated more than $3
million to Republican-aligned groups.

Another top corporate donor is a retirement community in central Florida
known as The Villages — a Republican stronghold where Paul Ryan held his first campaign rally the
day after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney named him as his running
mate.

Developer H. Gary Morse created The Villages more than 50 years ago, and this
election cycle, more than a dozen companies connected to Morse and The Villages
have collectively steered $1.6 million to GOP super PACs. That’s in addition to
the $450,000 that Morse and his wife, Renee, have donated from their personal
funds.
Notably, Morse is also the Florida co-chairman of the Romney campaign, and
during the Republican National Convention, Morse’s Cayman Island-flagged yacht,
named “Cracker Bay,” was the site of a soiree for some of Romney’s top donors
and fundraisers.
Other high-profile corporate donors include:

The Apollo Group, a for-profit education company, which gave $75,000 to the
pro-Romney Restore Our Future and another $5,000 to JAN PAC, the super PAC of Arizona’s
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer;

Payday lender QC Holdings, which gave $25,000 to Restore Our Future;
and

Weaver Holdings, the parent company of the Indiana-popcorn company known for
its brands “Pop Weaver” and “Trail’s End,” sold by Boy Scouts across the
country, which has donated $2.4 million to American Crossroads, the super PAC founded
by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie

FreedomWorks produced numerous advertisements, including one that blasts
Duckworth as a crony of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached
and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following a corruption scandal.

FreedomWorks’ super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political
advertising, including $1.7 million on Oct. 29 opposing Tammy Duckworth, yippee... she won!!! a
Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against
Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.

..... is a double amputee and Iraq War veteran. She headed Illinois’
Department of Veteran Affairs and later served in President Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs.
FreedomWorks’ new ad features grainy footage of Duckworth and audio of her
saying, “Gov. Blagojevich has charged me with the mission of taking care of my
buddies, and that is what I’m doing.” But it leaves out the fact that when she
said “buddies,” she was referring to other veterans and members of the
military.

Tammy Duckworth on Wednesday became first Thai-American woman elected to US
Congress after beating freshman Republican US Rep Joe Walsh in Illinois' 8th
congressional district.

With 41 percent of the votes counted, Duckworth led
Walsh 56.3 percent to 43.7 percent. The race was initially called by NBC. AP has
also called the race for Duckworth.

Ladda or Tammy, 44, born to Thai
mother and American father, has an exceptional life. She almost lost her life
during an attack in Iraq in 2004. She has served as commander of a Blackhawk
Helicopter Company